Sockpuppet question about Facebook, not the Dope: Is it breaking any rules for one person to create multiple Facebook pages associated with different names? Is it accepted or discouraged? Is it disreputable to do this on Facebook?
I’m not doing it and I’m not even on Facebook, I’m just trying to understand what somebody else is up to…
Although I don’t think Facebook likes people to have more than one profile, it’s pretty common. I know many people whose pets have profiles, and some small children with profiles. In none of those cases is the person or animal named on the profile the one doing the posting.
Facebook wants everyone to go by their “real” name, so no, you’re not supposed to have more than one account. Lots of people do, though. A guy I work with has at least three with variations of his name. My dad for some reason has two accounts both in the same name. I have an account for my cats. If Facebook finds out they will suspend your account until you can prove your identity, but most fly under the radar unless they get complaints.
UIAM it is widely believed that intelligence agencies including CIA and Mossad create fake Facebook accounts for possible future use as legends.
Of course it’s allowed. How else can husbands score with girls online?
I know several people with separate personal, professional, and gaming profiles. I don’t think fb really cares unless you’re using the socks to be abusive or commit fraud.
I had a sockpuppet account once. It came in handy to participate with Facebook stuff without posting any real info about myself. At the time I had no interest in having a “real” account. Later I made a real account, partially due to peer pressure and partially to connect to old friends. I don’t use Facebook much, social media isn’t my thing.
Eventually Facebook shut down my old account because they suspected it was fake. I’m not sure what clued them in, by that point I hadn’t used it for a long time. I never did anything “bad” with it. I didn’t complain when it was shut down since I didn’t need it, but it was still weird.
So yes, they are against the rules, and yes, they can ban those accounts even if they haven’t engaged in behavior against the rules.
I created another Facebook page because I wanted to monkey with the privacy settings. I had ‘shared’ a set of videos with a small group but they couldn’t see them (problem was I still had ‘can be seen by’ set to ‘only me’ on the videos).
Techinically, you’re not allowed to have a facebook account that doesn’t use you’re real name. That includes fake middle names (ie Sam AWESOMEMAN Johnson etc). For a while they were contacting anyone that appeared to have a fake name (notably the obviously fake ones), and asking for a copy of an ID, but I think they gave up on that. However, using a name other than you’re real name violates their TOS.
https://www.facebook.com/help/112146705538576
And I think their reasons are good, you want to know who you’re connecting to. Sure, YOU might be doing it for perfecting benign reasons, but some people are using fake accounts to impersonate other people for various reasons. It’s easier for them to just make an across the board rule that states that you have to use your real name.
And not that anyone here has to be reminded, you don’t have any constitutional rights (like freedom of speech or freedom of expression on a private website), so you can’t go saying that it’s your right to call yourself something else.
I know several people who have had their Facebook alias accounts shut down (as recently as a few weeks ago) because they were not using their real name, so I was going to make a blanket “no, you can’t do that.” But looking at Facebook’s terms of service, it seems like there’s a little wiggle room:
You are required to provide your real name, but I don’t see anything that says you need to use that for your user name. Of course, I don’t think there is any way to provide your real name OTHER than your user name…
I’m not sure where you’re seeing the wiggle room (since you didn’t mention what they were doing). But, like you said, I don’t think there’s any way to have you’re real name in one spot and a display name that faces forward.
Also, you said alias accounts from which I infer sock (second) accounts. That clearly violates the TOS.
Whoa. Sex offenders can’t even have a FB profile? Good luck ever getting integrated back into society like that!
*Is it breaking any rules for one person to create multiple Facebook pages associated with different names? *
Yes.
Registration and Account Security
Facebook is always changing behind the scenes. Nowadays Facebook logs all the browsers and devices that log in and if you try to log in from a device or browser associated with an account terminated for violating the terms of service, you will most likely have problems. As Always, YMMV.
For the sake of pedantry, you can legally have multiple Pages associated with one personal account because Facebook allows you to do things like create Pages for your business or band or whatever. I’m capitalizing the word Pages because on Facebook a Page is a specific deal and while they resemble personal account in many ways, you can’t interact with people in the same way. For example, when I’m logged in on my personal account, I can post messages on my “friends” home pages: “Hey Bob, let’s go fishing!” But I also have a Page for my business and so I cam also use Facebook as “Ornery Bob’s Cool Stuff” but when I’m my Page, I cannot post to people’s home pages because Facebook doesn’t want me to bug people with “Hey dood, buy my cool stuff.”
So one personal account but pretty much as many Pages as you want.
Screwing with Facebook used to be easier and it’s still trivially easy for anyone with skills, but hacking Facebook is a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. No matter how many accounts you have you’re still just an idiot on Facebook.
Heh. I just realized that this line in the TOS actually *requires *that we all create a Facebook Page for our own commercial gain, even if we don’t want one.
Thank you all. Yep, that’s what I was looking for – it’s definitely not allowed to do what I see this guy doing. Not that it’s a surprise people might do this, but, if somebody says everything is above board, and a double presence violates the rules, then EVERYthing isn’t above board!
They recently said it was OK for drag performers to use their stage name instead of their real name.
Is that if you set it up as a ‘business’ to promote yourself/show? That wouldn’t really be any different from setting up a page for my one man band.
OTOH, if they’re allowing people to use their stage name in place of their regular name on their (regular/real) profile, that would be different especially since, the way I understand it, a drag name isn’t something you go by on a regular basis, just when you’re performing.
Some actors use a stage name too and I would assume if they are on facebook they also use their stage name there. Many of them use their real name for legal purposes.
I recently needed to change the Doctor’s account to my real name, and I still don’t know what to do with the boring account that I originally set up under my real name in case family or employers went searching.
I now don’t care if my employers see that I share Cthulhu joke cartoons in my spare time.